the matter?"

"My mother is sick, and I have come for the doctor. There isn't much
the matter, but father is so anxious."

"Are all the rest well?"

"Of course they are."

The doctor drove away with Peter, and the judge's wife asked him to
send Thoma to her as soon as she could leave her mother.

Anton, too, soon went home with his father.

The physician on the plateau, and the raft-drivers in the valley, were
overtaken by a severe thunderstorm that burst forth with wind and hail.

CHAPTER LXII.

Two days and two nights it stormed in the valley and on the plateau,
with only short intermissions. When the thunder-clouds are ensnared
between close-set wooded mountains and sharply pointed rocks, they can
find no outlet. They toss hither and thither; they break and then come
together again; it thunders and lightens, rains and hails, till they
have entirely disburdened themselves.

One could almost say that it was the same with the people here; when
bad humor had fastened on these hard, sharp-pointed natures, the anger
and quarreling had no end.

Landolin and Thoma sat by the mother's sick bed; sometimes together,
sometimes alone. Their eyes flashed, but their thoughts were unspoken.
The mother was constantly faint, for the air did not cool off during
the two days and nights. On the third day, however, when the sun shone
again, and a balmy, fresh air quickened everything anew, she said:

"I feel better. Thoma, it would do you good to go out, and the judge's
kind wife has certainly something good to say to you. Go and see her.
She sent you word by the doctor. Go, for my sake, and bring me back
good news. You can go right away. You have nursed me as I hope some day
your child may nurse you."

Peter had told them that Anton had returned from Holland, and that he
had seen him talking earnestly with the judge's wife. And, although her
mother did not say so, she secretly hoped to live to see their
reconciliation.

Thoma prepared herself for the walk into the city. But she did not wish
a stranger to mix in their affairs. She did not need outside help, and
it would do no good.

When she went to her mother, in her Sunday dress, the mother said,
taking her hand:

"Child, you look quite different, now you have fixed yourself up a
little. Let me give you this advice. You are so gentle and so kind to
me; be the same to others. Don't put on such a dark face. There, that's
right. When